Near To You
by Alidiabin
Summary: Tony finds someone that Ziva was missing from her life. Set during 'Jetlag' but no excessive TIVA.


**Title: **Near To You**  
Fandom: **NCIS**  
Author: **Alidiabin**  
Words: **1,884**  
Disclaimer: **I own nothing**  
Warnings/ Spoilers: **General S7/8**  
Parings:** Hints of Tony/Ziva. **  
Summary: **During the Tony and Ziva's short stay in Paris. Tony finds something Ziva is missing.

_**Near To You**_

Tony sat in the bed in the beige-walled Parisian hotel room. Ziva had pulled the awful mustard coloured covers over her. Tony tugged back, as he read his sports biography.  
"Hey" Ziva uttered as she tugged back even harder.

Neither of them was practically happy due to having to share a room in the three-star small hotel room. Tony pulled forcing the covers to ripple. Ziva's American history fell into the gap between them. The book did not interest Tony, the book mark on the other hand did. It was a photograph. Tony picked it up. Judging by the puffy hair and bright clothes Tony worked out it was probably taken in the eighties. Tony held it up. Two girls one aged five the other about ten stood either side of a woman who had the same curly hair and Jewish features as the girl but was about thirty years older. Ziva looked at the photo. She plucked it from Tony's hands and rubbed the burnt edges.

"My mother" Ziva said beginning to open Tony's unanswered question. "She hated Passover she always thought it to religious, so for the three weeks we got off of school she would take Tali and I to Paris and we would always go to Raphael's café. He and my mother were friends" Ziva swallowed as she recanted the memory. "After Tali's death Nadia could not stand Israel but could not stand to go somewhere new. So she came to Paris. We tried to keep in contact but with our different lifestyles and geographic locations" Ziva paused again. "I do not believe I have spoken or written to her in many years and since" she paused though she did not say the word 'Somalia' Tony knew what she meant. "I have wanted to get back in contact with her life is too short to push people who love you away" Ziva paused again and took a second to regain composure "Anyway every time I am in Paris and it is my name on the passport I go to Raphael's" Ziva smiled at the photograph. "I do not know maybe I want us to bump into each other or something. It is stupid"  
"It isn't" Tony said. "I used to think all sorts of weird things to try and get my mother back"  
"Your mother is dead" Ziva said. "That is different. Nadia and I are just too stubborn to keep in contact"  
"Why is that?" Tony asked. Ziva closed her book and placed it on the bedside table.  
"It is what it is" Ziva said. "I'm tired" she turned off her lamp and shifted deep into the bed.

Tony woke early the next morning, he always had problems adjusting to new time zones and Ziva's snoring had kept him up half the night. He got up and headed toward the bathroom that was on Ziva's side of the hotel room. He noticed the photograph sitting on top of Ziva's American history book, he picked it up. He left Ziva a note of the notepaper with the hotel logo telling her he was going sight-seeing.

Raphael's café was easy to find. Tony stood in front of the café. It had barely aged in the twenty-five years since the picture was taken. The red letters had faded and the shabby plastic chairs had been replaced with iron ones.  
"I know Americans like their cups of Joe" A man said in English with a thick French accent "But we do not open for another hour" the man was perhaps Tony's age. He stared at the photo. "Eh Papa" he called. A man in his late sixties walked toward them, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Father and son exchanged rapid-fire French and laughed. They noticed Tony's confused expression and begun to speak English.  
"Nadia and I were in a band for a while before she went to Israel to marry that bastard husband of hers" the elder man Raphael uttered. "She came back every Easter with her little girls. She came here to Paris permanently after little Tali died she used to sing in the bar but since she heard of her elder daughter Ziva's death she seldom comes out of her apartment"  
"Ziva's alive" Tony said pulling out her phone and showing them a photo of Ziva and Abby either side of his father, taken the week before. "Where does Nadia live?" Raphael handed Tony a piece of paper with directions written on it.

After running up five flights of stairs, Tony understood why the French were so thin despite their diet. He reached the apartment Raphael and his son Henri had given him. The door said 'N. Jacob' Ziva had once explained that her mother's maiden name was Yakov but in Europe she often analogized it to Jacob. Tony knocked on the door. He heard cries of French which sounded like impolite versions of 'go away!' Tony knocked again. Finally the door opened.

Nadia Jacob stood with a cigarette tucked behind her ear. She had short wavy hair which had little strings of silver running through it. The hair stuck out at funny angles. Nadia tightened her red kimono-style silk bathrobe. Her chocolate eyes were enhaloed with black circles. She was the personification of despair. Tony looked at the woman's small apartment. The walls were covered in photographs; most of them of Ziva and/or Tali at different ages. As Tony surveyed the apartment he easily saw the Nadia had become obsessed with her daughters upon their deaths.  
"I know your daughter" Tony said in English hoping Nadia spoke English.  
"Knew" Nadia corrected. "Both my daughters are dead. I saw my youngest die from across the street and I have the letter from my ex-husband to prove my eldest is dead" Tony shook his head and pulled out his cell phone and showed Nadia the same picture her had shown Raphael and Henri. Nadia gasped and covered her face with her hands.  
"How do I even know any of this is real?" Nadia uttered cautiously. Tony pulled the photo Ziva had been using as a bookmark from his pocket. "Ziva" Nadia uttered tears running down her slightly wrinkled face.  
"She's in Paris" Tony said as Nadia's face lit up at the thought of her daughter being so near.  
"Do you think maybe" Nadia paused for a second considering what she was asking.  
"She'd like to see you" Tony interrupted the middle-age woman's line of thought. "Yeah. I think so she talked about you last night" Nadia dashed into her apartment filled with pure joy.  
"Where is she?" as she did a very 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' charade of finding her clothes and matching shoes.  
"She said that every time she is in Paris she goes to Raphael's" Tony said as he handed her a shoe while she did her lipstick.  
"Raphe wasn't lying when he told me all those times she had been in there" Nadia said. She kissed Tony on the cheek. "Thank you. Thank you. Merci. Todah" Nadia uttered kissing his cheeks each time she said thank you.  
"Just don't tell her I found you let her believe it's fate" Tony said, as Nadia wrapped the red scarf around her neck and placed her tan raincoat over her black pants and stripped sweater outfit.

Tony watched from the corner, as Ziva played with the croissant she had brought. Nadia walked along the street, even from afar Tony could tell the woman was shaking. He watched as mother and daughter slowly forged a new path of forgiveness and to a new relationship.

"Ziva" Nadia uttered. She watched as her daughter looked up from the magazine she had brought.  
"Na- mot- Mama" Ziva said stuttering. Her mouth fell open. "Sit down" Ziva cleared her half eaten meal and pointed to the table.  
"Oh Ziva" Nadia said gripping her daughters face. "You are alive"  
"Yes" Ziva said. Nadia sat in her seat.  
"Eli said you were dead" Nadia uttered as she took some of the half eaten croissant.  
"I got better" Ziva said. They stewed in silence for a few seconds.  
"I know you hate me for leaving" Nadia said looking down.  
"No" Ziva said. "I understand especially now I understand" Nadia looked at her daughter her eyes begging for an explanation. Ziva begun to explain; about Ari, Roy, Jenny, Michael, Somalia and her new life. Nadia listened as Ziva talked of Abby, McGee, Gibbs, Ducky and Jimmy. Nadia noticed the small smile on Ziva's face as she talked of Tony.

Ziva checked her watch Tony would be at Raphaels café soon having just gotten her mother back Ziva did not want to have to explain everything to Tony. She had too much going on in her head to start explaining thing.  
"My partner will be here soon" Ziva uttered. "Perhaps you should head off"  
"Ziva" Nadia said standing up and not protesting as like her daughter she was overwhelmed. "I never expect us to be bosom buddies you are too independent for that" Nadia let a smile cross her face as she recalled teenaged Ziva whose independence had caused much strife in the David household.  
"But" Ziva interjected.  
"I want us to keep in contact" Nadia said. "Our stubbornness has kept us like this for so long" Ziva handed Nadia one of the several postcards she had brought. She scribbled her NCIS address.  
"It's more likely to get to me if you send it there" Ziva said. "I am married to my job"  
"That explains my lack of grandchildren" Nadia uttered. Ziva smiled. It seemed that after years of avoidance, Nadia had become exactly what she loathed. Her own sister Nettie. Ziva had explained to Nadia that Nettie had died nearly two years before when Ziva was in DC for the summer.  
"See you later Mama" Ziva said. Nadia kissed her daughters cheek.  
"Indeed Ziva" Nadia said. "And please be careful I want you to bury me"  
"I'll try" Ziva said both women lingered and hugged. Both women separated with tears of joy in their eyes.

A couple of hours later, Ziva and Tony walked towards the embassy.  
"Thank you" Ziva said. Tony looked at her.  
"For what" Tony asked.  
"Intercepting fate" Ziva said.  
"C'est la vie" Tony said as he signed the paperwork and Nora was handed to them.

The postcards came once a month. Most of them were from Paris or France; a couple were from other cities in Europe. Nadia was singing again in Raphael's bar and travelling again. Ziva sent postcards back and a photo of her citizenship ceremony and a postcard from Miami. On her birthday Nadia sent a whole parcel of silly presents like paper crowns and funny coloured candy packets in strange languages that surprised the team but made Ziva smile at distant childhood memories.

Tony had told Nora, Paris changed Ziva, but as he looked at the smile on Ziva's face as she played with a paper crown he realised Paris had not changed her it had merely given her back what was missing.

**A/N**: I wrote this partially because I wanted to solve the riddle of Ziva's mother because Ziva has only referenced her once and said it in a way that gave the illusion they didn't' get on. So in my universe Ziva's mother whom I have named Nadia and Eli had a marriage that was messed up but kept it together for the sake of their children (and Eli's career) and upon Tali's death Nadia upped and left. Due to differences in lifestyle and geography mother and daughters already strained relationship crumbled.

I also wrote this because the TIVA in 'Jetlag' sucked. It was OTT and OOC. However Paris fitted into my idea and I wanted to retain aspects of cannon.

Thirdly I wrote this because I'm trying to blow off steam. Life is stressful atm.

Super sorry for the long authors note. Please review I have croissants.


End file.
